Teachers and principals have to write up and record incidents for the state, but also use another district-wide discipline form.

“A principal might call police, but only wrote it on one form but not the other,” Duran explained. “We’re not saying only three times police were called to the district, we’re saying it’s only three times police were called and coded properly on the right report.

“I know there were more times the police were called than three last year,” said the administrator who recently began work in the district. “I wasn’t even here last year and I know that.“

District officials will try to streamline its reporting and provide more than the bare minimum of information required by the state, Duran told the board.

Doing so, however, would upend previous protocol, as Sanders noted last week.

“We actually used to pay principals bonuses for not having issues at their schools,” he said. “We no longer do that ... we’re interested in truth and transparency. We don’t care who it embarrasses and what the numbers are. We want to know the truth.”

That quest for the unvarnished truth is a much better approach.

The first step in stemming the problems of violence, drug use, vandalism and other crimes committed in the schools is to begin with an accurate appraisal of their extent.

We call on all school district officials to meet the standards that Sanders has encouraged and Duran has said he will attempt to implement. Papering over the problems won’t make them go away.